Common Misconceptions Of Spotify

One of the key questions we tend to get asked here a lot at the start of a campaign is:

“Can you get my act/band on the ‘insert name here’ Official Spotify Playlist?”

The answer is far more complicated than you might imagine…

Allow us to explain.

Official Spotify playlists are set up, curated and managed ONLY by Spotify internally. This means that on any given day, they have many, many people within their company scouting out new talent and reaching out to those acts who have already picked up high numbers without being playlisted on official lists and then picking their favourites or the highest climbers to be placed on their official playlists. It is now possible to send/submit you to curated Spotify playlists, which are similar but not the same to official playlists – instead of being run by Spotify reps, they are entirely managed by people like you and me, musicians and music fans alike!

Getting on a lot of these can be worth it over time, some do have impressively high follower/listener counts and so you do end up seeing your streams increase eventually – however, getting onto them and into that position can be both time-consuming and frustrating and doesn’t offer a clear sign of success. For this reason, where Spotify is concerned, we never recommend putting all your eggs into one (their) basket.

However, there is good news! As some of you will already know, very recently Spotify introduced a new way for bands and artists to put their music in front of their playlist editors, simply and free of charge. This is a great opportunity for bands to get their music considered for any Official Spotify playlists within their genre(s) and one which we believe will not always be around as Spotify’s business model is ever-changing, so we strongly recommend you take this opportunity whilst it is around!

To make life nice and easy for you, we’ve got the broken down steps for doing this and the important need to know tips!

Spotify’s instructions (taken from Spotify themselves):

• Log in to Spotify for Artists on desktop, and find any unreleased music at the top of the Home or Profile tabs.
• Select GET STARTED next to the release you want to submit. Or, go to Profile, right-click any unreleased music, and select Submit a Song.
• Choose a song from the release to submit.
• Fill out as much info about the song as possible. The more info we get, the better chance it has!

IMPORTANT TIPS

You still need distribution (this tool will put you in front of Spotify, but it will not deliver your music to Spotify’s platform in the first instance).

You can only submit unreleased tracks to Spotify for consideration, any tracks out/in the public domain cannot be sent.

You can only submit one unreleased song at a time for playlist consideration. If you try to submit another immediately afterwards, all you will do is overwrite the first submission entirely. Once the track is released, you would then be able to submit another unreleased track.

Give Spotify as much data about the track as you possibly can during submission, they will be asking about instruments used, genre, mood, song meaning/intent etc – so the more info you give them, the more likely your track will end up where you want – especially if you have a playlist in mind already.

You will only be able to use this submission process via Spotify desktop version/your PC, it will not work via mobile.

You MUST submit your track to Spotify at least 7 days within the release/launch date, but ideally the more lead time you give Spotify, the better, equally don’t give them too much either, aim for balance, don’t let them miss/forget you.

The process is entirely free, there’s no charge for sending the submission whatsoever and trying to offer payment for placement will 100% not work.

There are NO placement guarantees. This process will definitely put you in front of Spotify’s curation team, but it doesn’t guarantee you a place on any of their playlists – that decision is ultimately down to them and their tastes. 

All decisions are final. If your track doesn’t make the cut on launch day, re-submitting it later down the line as unreleased material won’t work, Spotify are also alert to this tactic.

ONE FINAL NOTE

Getting on an Official Spotify playlist is fantastic and a great way to gain exposure, but don’t put too much dependence on it, especially from a financial point of view, because unless you’re generating millions of streams, this doesn’t truly start to translate into financial gain. Even if you are generating millions of streams, the turnover still will be nowhere near what you’re expecting – take the example below from the incredible Peter Frampton. Until the streaming business model drastically changes, Spotify is worth some of your time, but not most of it.

Apart from that, happy sending/submitting and good luck, we hope this has been a helpful guide!

Subscribe to our blog for more weekly tips and tricks from us!